My biggest problem is with SoftKeys. Regardless of which shortcuts are put into a SoftKeys shortcut, when the SoftKeys shortcut is invoked, my choice from the SoftKeys list is not executed. The numbered choices appear as usual, and they disappear when I make a choice, but the shortcut hangs until I make QK the frontmost application, then the shortcut proceeds. If I individually invoke any of the shortcuts listed in a SoftKeys shortcut (i.e., directly, instead of via SoftKeys), that individual shortcut works fine.

All aspects of QuicKeys work except one: shortcuts in toolbars do not work when QK's window is not open. Abbreviations work, shortcuts with key combinations work, toolbars are visible. If I minimize QK's window with the middle, yellow button the toolbar shortcuts will work.

I created a workaround for the biggest QuicKeys problem I've encountered in Lion, which is the need to bring QuicKeys to the front when it stalls (already discussed here). I wrote an AppleScript to be used as the basis for an Automator-generated Mac OS X Service which can be configured to be activated with a keyboard shortcut (I use command-option-control-Q). It's not perfect, and it may take some tweaking and some getting used to, but if QuicKeys fails to act when I trigger a shortcut, I can usually trigger this Service to cause QuicKeys to pick up where it left off. I delayed sending QuicKeys back to the background for 3.1 seconds, because I can usually navigate my SoftKeys hierarchies in that amount of time. Others may need to adjust this interval.

I used QuicKeys to bring QK to the front and then back again. The only problem I have is with Toolbars. QK has to be the front window so I click on the toolbar shortcut and activate the keystroke shortcut.

The shortcut is: Open Item (QuicKeys) and Close Window ➙ Action Close; Window Type ➙ any window; Identify by ➙ Main Window; In Application ➙ Front Application. The QK window opens and closes in less than a second.

But that's why it has to be a keyboard shortcut that makes something other than QK bring QK to the front. Granted, I'm in the process of establishing the habit that whenever things halt, I press command-option-control-Q, which may have unintended consequences of which I'm not yet aware, possibly as serious as those of the Opti-grab in The Jerk (it's a movie from the 1980's, and I didn't look up the spelling of the invention or the movie).

My toolbars work after a restart if I don’t bring/start QuicKeys.If I bring QK to the front with a keyboard shortcut the toolbars stop working until a system restart.

What I mean by not starting QK is I don’t have it in my dock or right top menu bar.If I don’t access it in any way my toolbars are fine.If accessed only a system restart restores toolbars functionality.

If you don't open QK for any reason the toolbars will work just as expected.

However, I have nearly 100 abbreviations and am constantly going to that window in QK to try to remember which abbreviation is the one I want. That immediately kills the toolbars for use without bringing the QK window to the front for a brief moment.

We began working on the update for Lion the first week of April, well before the public release of Lion on July 20, 2011. Our programming team for this project consisted of two individuals, one of whom had a twenty-year relationship with our company.

Programming was to be done off-site. Though we felt development was not proceeding quickly enough, we were assured that though the task was difficult, progress was being made. This situation continued through September. In October we learned that the lead programmer had an aggressive, fatal disease. He has now passed away. Because this illness was kept secret from us, both our company and you, our customers, have been harmed. Legal action is under consideration which has caused us to be more silent than we would have preferred.

In October we began searching for a replacement programmer to complete the update for Lion. Despite the offer of significant compensation, we have not yet found a properly qualified applicant.

We are disclosing this problem hoping that someone may know the right person who could complete this work. We estimate that about a month (or more) is needed for completion. We are willing to negotiate significant compensation to a qualified candidate who can complete the task. We are also offering a $1,000 award payable to the person who refers the programmer who successfully gets this software shipping within the time period that we negotiate with the candidate. Send referrals of qualified programmers to us at this special e-mail address, startlysoftware@aol.com

We again apologize for our silence. We ask for your understanding and assistance in helping this application have another 24 years providing greater productivity.

-- Startly

fyi - To allow our full effort to be directed to finding the right programmer, this forum will only allow posts pertaining solely to current and past versions of our products.

Example: I perform a SoftKeys trigger (say ctl-1). Reviewing the icons, I select the third and type a "3".

All continues to work well unless I open the QuicKeys Editor. Once I've done this, I begin getting the following hiccup, beginning the 2nd time I summon a SoftKeys palette:

1) I issue ctl-1 for my SoftKeys palette.2) I see the process begin in my menu bar: The Q expands into a strip containing a smaller Q, a pause icon, and a stop icon.3) I issue my second stroke (the "3"), and nothing happens. The expanded strip remains open, unresponsive to keys strokes.4) If I then click the "Q" in my menu bar--twice--it will complete the shortcut. From that point on I have to continue this process: Summon the SoftKeys, issue the keystroke selection, then click the "Q" in the menu bar twice. Or, as others have noted, I can alternatively open/move the QuicKeys editor every time.

But once opened, the editor keeps it's foot in the door!

If I quit QuicKeys and restart, all begins working well again--until I open the QuicKeys editor. I have disabled the hot key that opens the QuicKeys editor and now ONLY open it when I am sure I need to do something significant, whereupon I quit the program altogether and start it up anew, or my SoftKeys will be wonky. No, it's not the greatest environment for actually writing and testing shortcuts.

Try hiding QuicKeys (press cmd-H when the editor window is open) without closing the editor window. Hide QuicKeys again after bringing it forward to finish the SoftKeys action that caused QuicKeys to freeze.

Usually when I bring QuicKeys forward using the Mac OS X Service to which I assigned a keyboard shortcut (see my AppleScript), the SoftKeys that resulted in QuicKeys' freezing will execute faithfully. Occasionally, it doesn't, but when that happens I can press the QuicKeys-activating Service shortcut (repeatedly, if necessary) and it usually only takes one more try to make QuicKeys respond as expected again, within the limitations already stated. By doing it that way, I avoid the necessity of displaying the editor window each time I bring QuicKeys forward with the QuicKeys-activating Service shortcut.

I'm now using Mountain Lion, and I've decided Mac OS X (just "OS X" for Mountain Lion, I guess) Services are too flaky for this kind of thing, so I installed Spark and gave it this short AppleScript to trigger with ctl-opt-cmd-q:

It's not having that effect on my system and I'm running OSX 10.8.2. I happened to have restarted earlier today and everything went normally. Something else might be throwing the error and blaming QK.

For those of us who have been resisting the strong urge to jump to a competitor as a result of this, um, hiatus, an announcement about an upgrade would be cause for significant jubilation.

However, we're also aware a responsible software firm doesn't make announcements about vapourware. We know that a lot of what QK does under the hood requires significant co-operation with the underlying operating system, and Apple has been doing a lot of work to prevent such co-operation for security and other reasons over the last year, so I think we also have to cut Startly some slack. If it is, in fact, working on an upgrade, I suspect that every time Apple issues another system update these days (and there's another one in early beta now), the possible Startly programmer probably has to tear out, along with more of their remaining hair, chunks of possible alpha code that worked fine with the previous system version.

When one writes any third-party Mac utility these days, one looks like meat to the huge, slathering beast pacing in the same cage that holds you; a beast that, frankly, my dear, doesn't give a damn.

This forum is intended to assist customers in using QuicKeys. Only useful posts will be allowed.

We have previously explained the cause of our problem. What we didn't explain was the larger secondary problem. The false start on the conversion to Lion took all our financial reserves and we got nothing. We have been working our way back to financial health. We are now about at that point. As soon as we know when the new version will be available we will post it here.

We understand your frustrations but progress is not any quicker with questions on when it will be ready.

The ONLY difficulty I have yet experienced consistently is that when using a SoftKeys macro that the macros been locking up if I have opened the QuicKeys editor. I'm not doing that much development of extensive macros these days, so it's not a big deal. But it is a nuisance.

How I've addressed this, as mentioned upstream and likely in another thread or two, is that I quit and restart QuicKeys. So I manually open then quit the editor, and have an icon on my default menu template to start QuicKeys anew. A few mouse strokes and a few clicks.

Today it occurred to me that I could simply evoke a compiled AppleScript to do this for me. Likely no script could be easier for a non-AppleScripter to write. For those who might have a use, it looks like this:

OK, perhaps I am not understanding the work-around for SoftKeys. I am using the example SoftKeys in QuicKeys to which I have added an "open folder" shortcut which has no trigger and opens a folder of Applescripts. If I run the SoftKeys and select the "open AppleScript folder" SoftKey then I see the "play pause stop" icon replace my QuicKeys status icon in the menubar, and no folder opens until I click on the mini-menu in the menubar for QuicKeys and THEN click in the Finder. Only then does my Folder appear.

If I use the same SoftKeys and shortcut, followed by the AppleScript which was suggested above, again nothing happens and when I activate QuicKeys, it quits and doesn't relaunch and no folder appears.

So at this point in time, I don't need to do all kinds of workarounds to maybe get this working for me, Spotlight will serve my needs better than QuicKeys in this instance...

If I run the SoftKeys and select the "open AppleScript folder" SoftKey then I see the "play pause stop" icon replace my QuicKeys status icon in the menubar, and no folder opens until I click on the mini-menu in the menubar for QuicKeys and THEN click in the Finder. Only then does my Folder appear.

That's the problem alright.

1) Click the pause or stop button in this mini-menu until the macro has concluded. 2) Select "Open QuicKeys Editor…" from the menu-bar drop down. Then quit the program. 3) Find QuicKeys in your application folder. Double click it. 4) Once the program is up, you can "run the SoftKeys and select" whatever.

The next time you go "Select QuicKeys Editor…" your issues will begin again.

Conclusion on my system: After opening the QuicKeys editor I must quit the QuicKeys application and restart it for SoftKeys to operate without problems.

All other macros, by the way, don't seem to be effected while coming in and going out of the QuicKeys editor. Only the SoftKeys situation gets gimpy. For this reason (as mentioned upstream a couple of times), I've written an little applet that does one thing: Quits QuicKeys and restarts it.

If there are any questions regarding this solution, let me know. I will be glad to repeat it any time.

Info for any users who might be interested:Today I installed 10.8.3 on a test partition.I found out that QK does not work with Growl version 2, which is required for 10.8.

I use a few growl messages in my SCs to notify myself what's going on. My temporary solution is to install Growl 1.2.2. Growl is disfunctional, but at least I don't get an error from QK. Where I need, I change the SC to display QK's own messages (less nice).

With each version of Mountain Lion, I have to manually quit QuicKeys in order to shut down or restart my Mac. Using the shut down or restart sequence results in an error, telling me that QuicKeys would not quit. Any suggestions? THANKS.

I've never had a machine that does that so can't say if this will work or not. You would create 2 shortcuts one for Restart and one for Shutdown.

step 1) Menu Selection - change Menu to Position 1 so it selects the Apple menu and set Menu Item to Contains Restart or Shutdown depending on which shortcut you are setting upstep 2) AppleScript Text - copy the following into the field

tell application "System Events" repeat with myProcess in myProcesses set theID to (unix id of processes whose name is myProcess) try -- Should stop the application with no dialogs and no items saved. do shell script "kill -9 " & theID end try end repeatend tell